"The techniques of photography are not very hard to master. The difficult thing is to become a sentient, cognitive human being. If anyone is going to be good at this thing, they must push themselves to levels of sensory awareness that are beyond the ken of ordinary mortals.”
~ Jack Welpott
Like many photographers of the past century, Don Worth discovered his passion for the medium through the work of Ansel Adams. Encountering Adams in the early 1950s would prove transformative, and by 1956 Worth had become Adams’ personal assistant, a role he held until 1960. The two remained close friends until Adams’ death in 1984.
While Worth initially followed in Adams’ footsteps by photographing the natural landscape, he soon found his true artistic voice by turning his lens toward the intimate details of plants. Raised on a small farm in Iowa, he was already cultivating exotic species by the age of ten—an early passion that profoundly shaped both his sensibility and his lifelong connection to horticulture.
Later, at his home in Mill Valley, California, Worth created a lush half-acre botanical sanctuary that became both his refuge and the subject of hundreds of his photographs. His images, marked by incisive clarity and a quiet, meditative atmosphere, move beyond simple representation. They invite viewers into a reflective harmony with nature—an experience only Worth’s singular vision could reveal.
